All language subtitles for 03-MotivatedAndPracticalLighting.mp4

Here is where we get into filmmaking
and cinematography,

moving into a direction that is a bit
more of what we know it to be today.

And there are two main points that I'm
going to be focusing on

over the course of the two shoots that
we do.

And this is the first of those.

And this is called motivated lighting.

And motivated lighting is when your
lighting that you are using, whether

it's augmented or or real, you know,
actually using the sources in the scene,

it imitates the existing light.

And so if you have, like in that, in
that still frame, in the frame of

Gilda, if you have that says a scene,
the lamps are what is casting the

light, and you're creating a version of
that, even if the lights are not

unseen, they're off camera, but it's
creating the effect that looks driven

or motivated by the scene.

Ok,

this is a very early example of that.

So this is a still from citizen Kane.

And it's, I mean, it's shot separately,
but

that environment down below him would
be bright,

because that's where the light is in
the scene.

And so it's kicking the light up at its
face, and it feels like it's lit from

that direction.

So it makes a little bit of sense, even
though it's completely fake.

And this is a pretty early example of
it.

Here it is in the 80s.

It's a little bit of, probably a more
polished, modern example of it.

And so you can see in this frame, the
sun is coming in from the window, it's

creating the rimlight on the side of
the face.

And then when you look at it from the
side view, again, it's motivated by

what that light is doing in the window,
and it's not real.

So this is that idea

of motivated, of motivated lighting.

And this is, again, something that is
supremely important to what we are

going to be talking about over the
course of this class.

And there are instances,

many instances in both of these
environments, where I need things to

show up and affect my image that I
cannot actively change.

And so it's a very important
consideration for how you begin the process.

What do I need to show up?

How do I control it, and how do I
manipulate it?

And that's where

the tools and the knowledge of what
we're working with comes into play.

Now, one of the more important people,
I think,

when it comes to talking about this
kind of stuff, one of the most

important people that we can talk about
is Stanley Kubrick,

and he emerged in the 1950s,

and he really hit a stride, probably

by the 60s.

And he directed films like the shining
in 2001,

and clockwork orange and full metal
jacket, and many, many films that have

changed the shape of cinema.

And he wasn't necessarily the original,
sorry, the originator of using

motivated, or what we call

practical lighting.

He was probably the one that
popularized it the most significantly.

And so what makes practical lighting a
little bit different from motivated

lighting, that the methodology is very
similar.

It's you're lighting the subjects based
on what is real and what feels real.

Kubrick was a really big fan of

actually having the light in the scene
be the thing that was lighting his

subjects.

One of my favorite examples of it is
he's in the spaceship, and he's

crawling through the space, and there's
kind of it's lit from all sides of the

tunnel.

And so that was really, a really good
example of it.

Obviously, you can see the light and
the background.

And this

took a bit of technological advancement
for this to be a little bit more of a

realistic thing to happen,

because film needed to become a little
bit more sensitive, so that it could

handle less light.

And you could use more unconventional
lights, instead of having to throw up a

ten k

in the side of your frame and throw
just a bunch of light at your subject.

So you could be a little bit more
creative.

Technology, a lot of times evolved to
the point that gives us the ability to

be creative.

So

it's

really amazing right now with what we
can do with very little light.

And I you've definitely utilized that a
little bit in the first, the first

shoot that you're going to see.

So here's another example of it.

Dr.

Strange loved from 1964.

And it's not just about the

source of light

being the light for the actors, it's
actually a huge compositional element

on its own.

And he was, he was really brilliant at
incorporating the light into the composition.

This is probably the most extreme
example of

practical lighting in maybe his
repertoire.

It's one of the more famous examples.

A lot of photographers know this story.

He made this film called berry Lyndon
in 1975.

And he wanted to be able to light
Scenes by candlelight, because it was

more authentic to the period.

And obviously that was an incredibly
difficult thing to do in 1975.

But he wanted the Scenes to feel like
how they actually were,

how they would have been in real life.

And, you know, not necessarily the most

easy thing to do, but I am a big fan of
figuring out what you want to do first,

like deciding on the concept, and then
figuring out how you have to execute

it.

Like versus coming in and saying,
here's what I can do to execute it.

You kind of pigeonhole yourself into a
small box.

Creatively, I like to say, what's my
concept, what's my idea, and I have to

figure out something that I didn't know
existed, or do research to find out if

a piece of gear exists or not.

I come to that bridge when I cross it,
and it's more about, you make it

happen.

You figure out the solution to whatever
the problem is you're trying to create.

And so what he did was he bought three
different lenses that were designed by

carl's ice for NASA, and they were made
to be able to photograph on the dark

side of the moon.

And they were planar fifty millimeter

0.7

lenses.

They were f 0.7

lenses.

And he had them modified so that they
could mount cinematically.

And

he even

modified them to give him a couple of
wider versions.

So he developed something around a 35
and something around 24.

Although I don't think he used the 24
all that much, but he bought these lenses

that were originally made for NASA, and
they were 0.7.

And it was so that he could shoot these
Scenes by candlelight in the 1970s.

And the entire,

the entire

film, is a little bit soft because of
it for the most part.

But when you compare, because he was
heavily inspired by a lot of paintings,

and there's side by sides with Barry
Lyndon and paintings, and you could see

how he would totally

steal the compositions from something
and use it with his actors in the

frames and the movies.

And so the whole thing feels of the
period.

It feels authentic.

And he was a crazy, crazy

attention to details kind of a person.

So

now this concept of motivated lighting,
or practical lighting, is they're both

used really extensively in filmmaking
today.

And even though you can look through
the decades of the 70s and the 80s and

the 90s, they're all going to have like
a different visual style and a

different visual feel.

But if you really whether you're
comparing

like a grittier movie of the 70s or to
like a John Hughes 80s movie or a spielbergian

blockbuster, from later on, you see
motivated lighting

again and again and again.

You see both motivated, and you see

practical lighting all the time.

And so I am a big believer in using
both of those when you're trying to

recreate cinematic lighting,